We are a group of individuals who weigh or have weighed 300+, or near there. This group was formed to provide a place for others like us to find support, inspiration, and hope. We are aware of the distinct problems that come with weighing over 300 lbs.

We want to invite everyone (roosters as well as chicks!) to join us in our journey. We share laughter and tears, heartaches and fears ... joys and celebrations. We also share what works for us and what doesn't.

We have found this thread to be more than just a support group... we have found it to become a home. We invite you to join us!

gggirls

01-01-2014 02:41 PM

Welcome to 2014 - please feel free to always start the new thread.

lemc87

01-01-2014 03:14 PM

Thank you!

Hopefully 2014 is a year of triumph and happiness!

Happy New Year to you all and good luck with your journeys.

silentarctic

01-01-2014 05:29 PM

Happy New Years Everyone! :)

Larry H

01-01-2014 05:54 PM

Happy New Year Everyone

I am back after a three month absence and I am looking for a great 2014

Ubee

01-01-2014 07:20 PM

Happy 2014! May we all have a happy & healthy year!
Donna, good job helping your son and yourself get some exercise in! It is hard to get kids moving when they don't have an active friend next door.
Betsy, you are killing me! I could fly out for lunch one day when you feel like cooking! I really need to work on my cooking skills.
Fi, you are really picking up speed with your weightloss and exercise. Keep it up for yourself and the positive energy it brings to all of us!
Welcome lemc!
Silent, you are kinda quiet today. Little too much fun last night??? I hope so!
Larry, welcome back. I am sorry to hear of your sisters death. Good for you to join us. It will be nice to have a mans perspective.
The other day I said I hoped my new way of eating would give me more energy? Today I was so busy I forgot to make my coffee. I hope this keeps up! I will chat more tomorrow because THE KIDS GO BACK TO SCHOOL!!!
Any lurkers ready to take the next step and join us?

silentarctic

01-01-2014 11:49 PM

Ubee yeah whole bottle of wine then I had brunch with aome of my nearest and dearest and then just tired, I ran the dishwasher though lol. thats about it. Work again tomorrow...

mountain walker

01-02-2014 07:12 AM

Hello my lovely chicks, ( I refuse to consider myself an old boiler just yet!!)
Well yesterday was kinda on plan except for the home baked bread.....! We had homemade turkey soup and goodness it was lovely...very healthy and as everywhere was closed I made 50/50 bread.It was gorgeous but you know...it was so lovely (even though I say so myself!) I took my time eating it, didn't want butter on it and stopped after a modest amount so stayed well within my calorie allowance.
For all the carb avoiders...I am sorry about that last sentence. I do reduce my carbs when I am healthy eating especially bread but have never cope well on a low carb....I just go for eat less do more and it seems to work for me ( I lost 83lbs or so last year)
Took the plunge and took all 3 dogs out today!!!!!!! Well if I did!!! The Jack Russells are just out of season and were complete lunatics which made the pup even worse!!! One of the Jacks escaped from the parkin into a builders yard and was too dumb to find the way back!
Talk about stress! Have decided it is a good excuse to walk them separately ( more exercise!) until they learn ( or relearn) to behave!
Ubee.....forgot to make coffee?? Can't compute! But well done on the extra energy.
Harry...welcome back. How nice as Ubee says to have a chap's persepective.
Hi Silent.....hope work was OK?
Have a great day my lovely ladies.

Larry H

01-02-2014 08:47 AM

Fiona W Thank your for the welcome and for your invitation to join the January Chat Thread

mountain walker Thank you for the welcome. You must have me mixed up with some British Royalty, my name is Larry not Harry. That is OK you can call me whatever you want. :D I was surprised by your location as I was born and raised in South Wales, New York.

Ubee Thank you also for the Welcome and for your kind words about my Sister. :) We once were a family of five, three boys and two girls. Now I am the last one.

I have only been back eating on plan since 12/30/2013 and so far so good.
I calorie count and my daily goal is 1650. Many years ago I tried low carb dieting and had some success but I got tired of the limited food choices. Now I eat whatever I want as long as I stay under my calorie limit. This seems to me to be a plan I could follow for life.

If the saying "You learn from your failures" is true then I should have a PHD in dieting by now. :D I believe that "We do not fail unless we stop trying" and I am too stubborn to stop trying.

Larry

ANewLife4Me

01-02-2014 12:16 PM

Hi

Hi everyone! So I've been a member here for several years, but just now back on the bandwagon. I've found that this is a great place of support, especially when I'm just not feeling it. I like that there are real people here like me, with similar situations. So-- thanks for being here. :-)

betsy2013

01-02-2014 12:53 PM

Good morning all (changed my usual greeting to welcome Larry!). I survived the family festivities yesterday although I did eat things I probably shouldn't have. However, it was a water whoosh day so the trip down took forever -- 4 stops! -- and it's only about 150 miles. I woke up this morning to a weight loss from yesterday so the long drive was worth it.

Larry -- welcome (didn't get a chance to welcome you yesterday) to our group of chicks......or should I make that chicks and rooster. Glad that you've rejoined us, and it will be nice to have a male perspective. Your dieting approach is something that I'm slowly coming to realize -- we all have to be able to figure out a way to lose weight and then keep it off without constantly feeling deprived. Your comment about being the last one in your family hit home. Same for me. Such an empty feeling when you have a memory and realize that there's no one who can understand or share the memory.

Anewlife4me -- Welcome to you as well. This is a great group and we share our thoughts pretty much every day.

Ubee -- I'm with Donna. Forgot to make the coffee? I've forgotten to take my medicines occasionally, but never the coffee. You must have been really rockin' and rollin' yesterday. Are you celebrating school starting today?

SilentArctic -- Sounds like you had a fun New Year's -- it's nice to have someone younger to remind those of us who have reached the stay-home-and-hope-we-make-it-until-midnight stage of life that partying still occurs. And I love that you ran the dishwasher and count it as work. You're my type of woman. My hatred of housework is to deeply felt that I, too, count ANYTHING that gets done as a major achievement and sacrifice. :D

Donna -- We'll never be old boilers! Perish the thought. We might become dowagers, but will be considered too worldly and wise to be relegated to the boiling pot. (I do love living in my fantasy world!). Your bread sounds wonderful along with the turkey soup -- and having a slice of wonderful homemade bread isn't what did us in. Loved your description of trying to walk all 3 dogs at once -- what a brave soul you are. One at a time would definitely be the way to go. Or maybe walk all three but with your son and husband to have some quality together time and sneak in the exercise as the extra benefit.

Fi -- WOW -- your walk around the lake is wonderful. I would be busting my buttons (which has happened before but for a different reason) if -- make that when -- I can walk 1.5 miles. Good for you. I love how you actually experience things -- the description of the walk added so much to it. Laughed at the eye liner and mascara. It's only when I'm actually going to see other people -- don't bother for gardening. I have very deep set eyes, very fair skin and dark hair (with a little help from a box!). If I don't do some liner and mascara, I look like a sheet of typing paper with some bumps on it. The baked brie is done on a cookie sheet, at 350. Take the rind off one end of a brie round, top with pesto, then slivered almonds. Wrap in rolled out puff pastry and bake for 20-25 minutes. Serve with crackers. Actually, once it comes out of the oven, if you took the puff pastry off (which it easily comes off almost like a wrapper) the resulting melted gooey cheese and toppings are low carb. And I always use nut thins for crackers as I can have 17 of them in a serving. But if you took the puff pastry off, you could use almost anything with it or even just eat it with a fork or spoon.

Is anyone else mentally thrilled to have the holidays complete? It's almost as though I had a sense of fear when Thanksgiving arrived, and I knew that there'd be way too many opportunities for binging and loss of control. Today I feel refreshed and ready for the continued effort to get healthy. Maybe it's just the excitement and almost awe that I feel when I realized that I'm still mentally in the game when my history has always been that I'd be well on my way to regaining everything by now. Off to get my hair cut, run errands and pay those pesky bills. Have a great day.

Fiona W

01-02-2014 01:10 PM

Man am I sore today! I was complaining to my husband Bob that it didn't seem right to me that I should be so very sore, from only walking 1.5 miles. He said that since I'm about 150 lbs. overweight, what I did yesterday was comparable to carrying two 75 lb. bags of cement for a mile and a half. That helped me get some perspective! I think you said something about that one time, Ubee, about how we get a lot of exercise, just from walking and carrying our heavy bodies.

ANewLife4Me— Nice to meet you! You're right about what a great place this is, for getting support. I look forward to when you can tell us a little bit about yourself, who you are and what you're up to these days. I go by Fi (pronounced "fee"). I'm a 58-yr-old artist, writer, & retired physician. (But please don't ask me medical questions: my training was a long time ago, so my knowledge is not current.) I'm married to a ponytailed botanist whose research area is forest community ecology. We're child-free (by choice) and are looking forward to bringing a pair of kittens into our life, probably this summer: that's when the breeder of oriental shorthairs who sold us our last pair expects have some new kittens.

Larry— I agree with the others that it's nice to have a man's perspective on this big project we are all engaged in. I know what you mean about how a low-carb diet has fewer choices, but I'm weird that way: I prefer not to think very much about food, so eating the same things over & over again is just fine with me. And it helps that I really like meat, eggs, & cheese.

Donna— Wow, I didn't know you'd lost 83 lbs. last year: that's impressive! If I lose that much in 2014, I'll be thrilled. I hope my new walking program will kick my metabolism into higher gear.

Ubee— I can imagine what it's like for parents when the kids have been around the house during a vacation, how nice it is when they go back to school. You mentioned something called "flylady" (I think that was it) in your New Year's resolutions. Could you explain what that is?

mountain walker

01-02-2014 01:44 PM

Fi :1.5 miles is a fantastic achievement...well done...despite the achy bits! Your life sounds fascinating(other people's lives always do)
Larry: sorry about the incorrect name that was really rude of me. Well fancy there being a South Wales in New York! I am in Wales UK where we speak a strange language ( on my list of things to do this year is to learn to speak Welsh fluently!) wave our arms alot and talk very fast!
Besty: I completely agree about the relief when the festive season is over and life gets back to "normal"....waht's normal by the way!!??Because I worked full time for the first few years of Sam's life, I always cherish the holidays and miss my little boy when he goes back to school....honestly, Mum's are so embarassing.
Anewlifeforme:Welcome lovely, I am sure I recall posting with you last year??? I am 47 year old former Physiotherapist who had togive up work dueto a raft of health problems. I have dogs, chickens, and 2 children...not neccessarily in that order!
Spent 20 minutes doing Just Dance 2 on the Wii today....looked like an idiot but really enjoyed it and it amused the dogs!
Take care all.

Ubee

01-02-2014 04:20 PM

WOW! I could have sworn I posted today!
Hi Everyone!
Silent, yup running the dishwasher counts! Are you all recovered from your pre holiday bug?
Dr. Larry, so true about learning from our failures or experiments as I like to call them!
Betsy, hoorah for the whoosh! All right now which one of us do you think is going to take the pastry off and not eat it??? I am so excited to see how low I can go this year! Who is all doing the challenge that will start next week?
Fi, Flylady is a woman who teaches us we are all right the way we are and helps us get our house work done. She has a website at flylady.net . Everyday she sends me an email with one simple job to do. It is like weightloss. A little housework everyday gets the job done. It does not have to be perfect just done.
Donna, you are really mixing it up with your exercising. Good job!
Well the kids went back to school and I don't know where the day went. My special needs daughter is home and enjoying some ground up grass fed beef with a salsa of peppers, onions, cilantro, lime juice. garlic, olive oil and tomatos. She is my true pal in this weightloss journey!
Have any of you set any number goals yet? I think we are supposed to if we join NightKatts challenge in the 300+ thread? (Not have to.) I am thinking of giving myself a challenging goal.
How is everyone doing?

Larry H

01-02-2014 05:23 PM

I love the first few days of a diet when water weight falls of rapidly. Below is my progress which I am enjoying for now. My experience has been that this rapid release of water will end all too soon

betsy2013 - Thank you for the welcome. It is tough to be the last one left in a family. In my case I was the baby of the family so I guess I was bound to be last. I miss them all. I had to smile at your "water whoosh day and your 150 mile trip with 4 stops". I take a water pill each day and I sure understand your trip.

Fiona W - I like your husbands example of the cement bags.

mountain walker - The mistake of my name was not rude on your part, it was simply a mistake, nothing more. (I have been known to make a lot of mistakes myself)

Ubee - As a long time member of the Shriners who works on behalf of special kids, I know that it takes special mothers to care for special children. My fez is off to you. :bravo: